Part 9 (1/2)

'It's Ramada,' Branch insisted. The navigator must have climbed from the broken craft to do what navigators do: orient.

'Major.' Jefferson's tone had changed. With all the world listening, this was just for him. 'Get out of there.'

Branch hung to the side of the wreckage. Get out of here? He could barely stand.

Mac came on. 'I'm picking it up now, too. Fifteen yards out. Coming straight for you. But where the f.u.c.k did he come from?'

Branch looked over his shoulder.

The dense atmosphere opened like a mirage. The interloper staggered out from the brush and trees.

Lasers twitched frenetically across the figure's chest, shoulders, and legs. The intruder looked netted with modern art.

'I've got a lock,' Mac clipped.

'Me too.' Teague's monotone.

'Roger that,' Schulbe said. It was like listening to sharks speak.

'Say go, Major, he's smoke.'

'Disengage,' Branch radioed urgently, aghast at their lights. So this is how it is to be my enemy. 'It's Ramada. Don't shoot.'

'I'm vectoring more presence,' Master Sergeant Jefferson reported. 'Two, four, five more heat images, two hundred meters southeast, coordinates Charlie Mike eight three...'

Mac cut through. 'You sure, Major? Be sure.'

The lasers did not desist. They went on scrawling twitchy designs on the lost soldier. Even with the help of their neurotic doodles, even with the stark clarity of his nearness, Branch was not sure he wanted to be sure this was his navigator.

He ascertained the man by what was left of him. His rejoicing died.

'It's him,' Branch said mournfully. 'It is.'

Except for his boots, Ramada was naked and bleeding from head to foot. He looked like a runaway slave, freshly flayed. Flesh trailed in rags from his ankles. Serbs? Branch wondered in awe.

He remembered the mob in Mogadishu, the dead Rangers dragged behind Technicals. But that kind of savagery took time, and they couldn't have crashed more than ten or fifteen minutes ago. The crash, he considered, perhaps the Plexiglas. What else could have shredded him like this?

'Bobby,' he called softly.

Roberto Ramada lifted his head.

'No,' whispered Branch.

'What's going on down there, Major? Over.'

'His eyes,' said Branch.

They had taken his eyes.

'You're breaking up... Tango...'

'Say again, say again...'

'His eyes are gone.'

'Say again, eyes are...'

'The b.a.s.t.a.r.ds took his eyes.'

Schulbe: 'His eyes?'

Teague: 'But why?'

There was a moment's pause.

Then Base registered. '...new sighting, Echo Tango One. Do you copy...'

Mac came on with his cyber-voice. 'We're picking up a new set of bogeys, Major. Five thermal shapes. On foot. They are closing on your position.'

Branch barely heard him.

Ramada stumbled as if burdened by their laser beams. Branch realized the truth.

Ramada had tried to flee through the forest. But it was not Serbs who had turned him back. The forest itself had refused to let him pa.s.s.

'Animals,' Branch murmured.

'Say again, Major.'

Wild animals. On the edge of the twenty-first century, Branch's navigator had just been eaten by wild animals.

The war had created wild animals out of domestic pets. It had freed beasts from zoos and circuses and sent them into the wilderness. Branch was not shocked by the presence of animals. The abandoned coal tunnels would have made an ideal niche for them. But what kind of animal took your eyes? Crows, perhaps, though not at night, not that Branch had ever heard of. Owls, maybe? But surely not while the prey was still alive?

'Echo Tango One...'

'Bobby,' Branch said again.

Ramada turned toward his name and opened his mouth in reply. What emerged was more blood than vowel. His tongue, too, was gone.

And now Branch saw the arm. Ramada's left arm had been stripped of all flesh below the elbow. The forearm was fresh bone.

The blinded navigator beseeched his savior. All that emerged was a mewl.

'Echo Tango One, please be apprised...'

Branch shucked the helmet and let it hang by the cord outside the c.o.c.kpit. Mac and Master Sergeant Jefferson and Christie Chambers would have to wait. He had mercy to perform. If he did not bring Ramada in, the man would blunder on into the wilderness. He would drown in the ma.s.s grave, or the carnivores would take him down for good.

Summoning all his Appalachian strength, Branch forced himself upright and pressed away from the s.h.i.+p. He stepped toward his poor navigator.

'Everything will be okay,' he spoke to his friend. 'Can you come closer to me?'